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And the Land Lay Still [Paperback]

James Robertson (Author)

4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (50 customer reviews)

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Book Description

Publication Date: 2 Jun 2011

And the Land Lay Still is the sweeping Scottish epic by James Robertson

And the Land Lay Still is nothing less than the story of a nation. James Robertson's breathtaking novel is a portrait of modern Scotland as seen through the eyes of natives and immigrants, journalists and politicians, drop-outs and spooks, all trying to make their way through a country in the throes of great and rapid change. It is a moving, sweeping story of family, friendship, struggle and hope - epic in every sense.

The winner of the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award 2010, And the Land Lay Still is a masterful insight into Scotland's history in the twentieth century and a moving, beautifully written novel of intertwined stories.

'Toweringly ambitious, virtually flawlessly realized, a masterpiece and, without a doubt, my book of the year' Daily Mail

'A jam-packed, dizzying piece of fiction' Scotland on Sunday

'Gripping, vivid, beautifully realized' The Times

'Engrossing' Daily Telegraph

'Powerful and moving. A brilliant and multifaceted saga of Scottish life in the second half of the twentieth century' Sunday Times

'Brilliant and thoughtful. Eminently readable, subtle and profound' Independent on Sunday

'Bold, discursive and deep, Robertson's sweeping history of life and politics in 20th-century Scotland should not be ignored' Ian Rankin, Observer Books of the Year

James Robertson is the author of three previous novels: The Fanatic, Joseph Knight and The Testament of Gideon Mack, which is available in Penguin. Joseph Knight was awarded the two major Scottish literary awards in 2003/4 - the Saltire Book of the Year and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year - and The Testament of Gideon Mack was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, picked by Richard and Judy's Book Club, and shortlisted for the Saltire Book of the Year award.

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And the Land Lay Still is the sweeping Scottish epic by James Robertson

'Toweringly ambitious, virtually flawlessly realized, a masterpiece and, without a doubt, my book of the year' Daily Mail

'A jam-packed, dizzying piece of fiction' Scotland on Sunday

'Gripping, vivid, beautifully realized' The Times

'Engrossing' Daily Telegraph

'Powerful and moving. A brilliant and multifaceted saga of Scottish life in the second half of the twentieth century' Sunday Times

'Brilliant and thoughtful. Eminently readable, subtle and profound' Independent on Sunday

'Bold, discursive and deep, Robertson's sweeping history of life and politics in 20th-century Scotland should not be ignored' Ian Rankin, Observer Books of the Year

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Product details

Paperback: 688 pages
Publisher: Penguin (2 Jun 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0141028548
ISBN-13: 978-0141028545
Product Dimensions: 2.9 x 13.2 x 19.8 cm

Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (50 customer reviews)

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 95,697 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

Wonderful, brilliant, panoramic, illuminating. A joy to read (Irvine Welsh Guardian)

Gripping, vivid, beautifully realized (The Times)

Powerful and moving. A brilliant and multifaceted saga of Scottish life in the second half of the twentieth century (Sunday Times)

Toweringly ambitious, virtually flawlessly realized, a masterpiece and, without a doubt, my book of the year (Daily Mail)

Big, ambitious, intricately organised . . . it's some achievement (New Statesman)

Dizzying . . . subtle and profound . . . And The Land Lay Still reads like an alternative history of Scotland told by its everyday people instead of its movers and shakers . . . eminently readable (Independent on Sunday)

Both epic and domestic, it delivers a wonderful lifelikeness (Scotsman)

A hugely ambitious and compassionate novel . . . a jam-packed, dizzying piece of fiction . . . already it's being spoken of as the most important novel about Scotland since Lanark (Scotland on Sunday)

About the Author

James Robertson is the author of three previous novels, The Fanatic, Joseph Knight and The Testament of Gideon Mack. Joseph Knight was awarded the two major Scottish literary awards in 2003/4 - the Saltire Book of the Year and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year - and The Testament of Gideon Mack was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, picked by Richard and Judy's Book Club, and shortlisted for the Saltire Book of the Year award.

Inside This Book (Learn More)

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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

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48 of 51 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A stunning achievement - best book I've read for ages 31 July 2010

By Ripple TOP 100 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

James Robertson's And The Land Lay Still couldn't be more evocative of Scotland if it came deep fried with a dram of whisky on the side and a soundtrack of bagpipes. As it is, it's the size of a small caber, but this is not a book you want to toss away. It's wonderful. It's beautiful. It's epic.

The basis for the story is Michael Pendreich who is preparing an exhibition of photographs from taken by his late father, Angus. The focus is on the people rather than the landscape though. Angus had a reputation for taking pictures that are slightly off of the main subject matter - something known as the Angus Angle. Michael had a strained relationship with his father and as he prepares for the exhibition he wonders about his father's life and the subjects of the photographs. As Mike searches for a thematic link between the images, this is a metaphor for the book with a rich cast of believable characters. However, what it is in reality is a celebration of Scotland and a social and political history of Scotland in the post war years, with an on-going focus on national identity. But just like Angus' photographs, Robertson makes these political issues an angle on a series of stories and character studies that intertwine.

It's a terrific achievement. Robertson is a highly gifted story-teller himself and while those searching for a clear plot line might be frustrated, what emerges is one of the most evocative and convincing celebrations of a country that I've had the pleasure of reading. He's clever too. Some characters speak in Scottish dialects, but these are not always the ardent supporters of nationalism. No, that would be too cliche and easy. And yes, his characters do take opposing views, although the over-riding sense is that independence is a good thing. Read more ›

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38 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Four years well spent, an amazing achievement. 30 July 2010

By I Readalot TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE VOICE

Format:Hardcover

'And the Land Lay Still' is an epic masterpiece of a novel. Not always easy to read but well worth the time and effort. It is a novel about the social and political change in Scotland - but not JUST about Scotland - over a period of 50 years, a time when the 'Scottish Question' is debated time and time again. Somehow Robertson makes politics interesting and shows how it affects everyone. It is modern history and anyone alive today, (except the very young) will relate to the story as part of 'their' history. I found most of the references regarding politics, society and popular culture to be familiar.

It starts with Michael Pendreich in the process of choosing photographs for an exhibition of his father's work, not an easy task considering the 1000's that Angus Pendreich had taken during his lifetime. He is also planning a book to run alongside the exhibition and is struggling with the introduction. The novel ends with the opening of the exhibition and inbetween we hear the stories of the characters who appear in the photographs, some who directly influence change and others who are affected by it.

I said it is not always easy to read partly due to the stucture which is not linear, much appearing as flashbacks from the various characters. However I think that the structure is signposted near the beginning of the book when Michael visits Jean, an old friend of Angus's. When he suggests chronological order for the photographs she considers it as being interesting but perhaps not really the natural way to construct a narrative 'It's not how we remember our own lives, our own stories, after all. Bits of them come at us in any old order. Read more ›

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25 of 27 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars 'the meaning of stones' 6 Aug 2010

By William Rycroft

Format:Hardcover

James Robertson's novel 'aint small. 60 years of history covering 670 pages, charting a period of great change not only in Scotland, where the book is centred, but across the British Isles and beyond. This isn't a book to whip through quickly, which isn't to say that it's slow or meandering, but with a significant cast of characters often connected through family or circumstance I wished at times that I'd had one of those handy bookmarks that came with my edition of War and Peace with all the characters listed and grouped together by family.

The narrative is rather neatly framed by the curation of a photographic exhibition. Mike Pendreich struggles to write the essay that will accompany his father Angus's retrospective, a collection of photographs charting 50 years of Scottish life. It isn't just about picking the right pictures, but whether the narrative or structure that Mike imposes on the work is appropriate.And so as he takes a retrospective look, so do we. The first section looks at Mike's political education in the radical Edinburgh of the 1970's ('The decade when the world changed. This is how Mike thinks of the 1970s. Maybe this is because it was in those years that he himself changed, came to know who he was. And maybe that's nonsense, because who ever really knows who they are? And does the world, or anybody, ever stop changing?').Robertson creates a fervent atmosphere of music, political discussion and opinion which spills out from pubs like Sandy Bell's and into the houses of magnetic figures like Jean Barbour. Like the centre of the spinning wheel she is the still point around which many of this section's characters revolve (whilst also being an important figure for Mike's father). The smokey discussions of disparate political groupings pull in opposing directions, the search for common ground - so important if a Scottish politics is to take off - a constant battle.

However, this is not a separatist novel. Robertson uses national events, both political and cultural, and shows a Scottish perspective. Markers in the cultural maturity of the nation are a handy way of reflecting the moral reactions of his characters, particularly with regard to sex, with Lady Chatterly's Lover and Psycho two notable examples. This does mean however that the novel can have a slightly clunky journey in places. Well known events act as historical signposts and whilst these might be useful and informative in the early sections of the book they seemed to feel much more clumsy and obvious as the book moved forwards into the era that I was more familiar with. Dialogue all too often was there to impart electoral results, political theory or historical context ("This 1320 club," Croick said."Why 1320 again?" Canterbury asked. Probably he already knew, but maybe not. - and an explanation duly follows). Sometimes he gets it just right though, as when he depicts Scotland's performance at the World Cup in Argentina 1978 (scene of Archie Gemmill's famous goal against the Netherlands) as 'the surreal rehearsal to the political events of 1979' (a failed devolution referendum).

When Mike talks to Jean Barbour about his father's history she is quick to point out the shifting ground he is attempting to build foundations on - "Stories aren't static Mike...They grow, they shrink, they change with the retelling." This fluidity is well used by Robertson in conjunction with "Our ability to look back on the past, our need or desire to make sense of it" ("both a blessing and a curse") Whilst the first few sections of the book focus on specific stories, the rest of the book begins to merge the various characters together, just as the photographs of Angus Pendreich bring their various subjects together in a single space. Running through all this is the almost haunting presence of a tramp-like man, with stones in his pockets, the subject of italicised pages that bookmark each section. His enigmatic presence is mysterious to begin with until we gradually realise who he is and a man who easily passes in and out of people's vision, the kind of man that we all ignore on a daily basis, turns out to have a fascinating personal history, one that gives this huge novel a much-needed humanity.

With all this politics and widescreen narrative it is worth pointing out that the book has a wicked vein of humour running through it too. In fact it is with one of his most overtly political characters that Robertson has the most fun - David Eddlestane 'just an ordinary young man with prospects. And a twist.' That twist isn't so much scandalous as embarrassing - a shoe fetish - but it is wickedly employed to punctuate the career of a fast moving Tory during the ascent of a certain grocer's daughter.

'Margaret Thatcher - she was not desirable but she was to be desired; she was not touchable but she could be worshipped; she was not winnable but she might make you hers with a smile. At last his turn came, He was introduced. She took his hand and leaned in towards him to catch his name. the warmth of her smile as they talked, the earnestness with which she listened, the conviction in her eyes as she expressed a view, were almost enough for him. Then as she moved on he cast his own eyes down and saw her legs, her shoes, and his conversion was complete. It was the nearest he would ever come to a religious experience.'

From the outset I got the feeling that I was reading an important book and how various readers react to this may determine how well they get along with it. I'm certainly glad that I persevered through what is an uneven book as Robertson is a writer more than capable of creating great atmospherics and moments of beautiful prose. Each character is absolutely clear as well, no small achievement with such a lot of them, and a couple of them have the power to stay with you after the book. And The Land Lay Still is the first book, that I have come across, that attempts to look at such an important period of history for Scotland, making it a book sure to garner attention up there and worthy of note to those south of the border and elsewhere. Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A most wonderful book.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. Will read it again. Worth at least 5 stars. I bought it for my friend who thinks it is wonderful too.

Published 14 days ago by Ann Mcrae

4.0 out of 5 stars good read & pleasing reminders of recent past.

My time line seen through the story brought back lots of memories. Threads in the tale all connected in the end. I liked the style of writing and the pace.

Published 18 days ago by Buyer765

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply braw

A slow winding walk through Scotland's recent history with vivid, engaging characters and lovely narrative. If you love Scotland, you've love this book.

Published 5 months ago by FRENCHIE

2.0 out of 5 stars A bit of a slog to find what this is really about

A publication not worth a review it was neither a novel nor anything else. very disapointing as was a great admirer of this author's other books

Published 7 months ago by Robert Ross

4.0 out of 5 stars A real page turner

Great cover of the political events of the past 60 years coupled with interesting characters.
Takes you back to some events which shaped current politics

Published 7 months ago by billy tiree

4.0 out of 5 stars Great condition

This book is great, got it for a fantastic price. I shall enjoy reading this over and over! Thank you

Published 8 months ago by Gary McGlynn

5.0 out of 5 stars Just Astonishing

I have just finished reading this book, borrowed from my local library and I am just about to buy it for my Kindle. Read more

Published 9 months ago by C. A. Price

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful tale of times we've all lived in.

Wide ranging historical novel of Scotland since the WW 2. Should be required reading in schools in English, modern studies and history classes. Read more

Published 10 months ago by Mhairi

5.0 out of 5 stars Condition as described.

This book was recommended to me and I am delighted with the condition and the price, good value for money.

Published 11 months ago by William Crighton

3.0 out of 5 stars And the land lay still

The book consists of a succession of stories about various Scottish characters over a period of about 50 yrs.The characters were revisited as the book progressed. Read more

Published 13 months ago by Simon Gale

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